


A Ghost In The Moscow Night

by ShadowHaloedAngel



Series: Then and Now [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Assassination, Child Abuse, Field, Gen, Gymnastic, Implied underage noncon, Natasha's backstory, Red Room, Snow, This is Natasha's backstory guys, Underage Assassin, think about what that entails please, use common sense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 21:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowHaloedAngel/pseuds/ShadowHaloedAngel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When she is a young girl, first being trained as one of the many Black Widows, Natasha takes a mission on a Winter's night.</p><p>Part one of the Then and Now series, looking at snapshots from the Avengers' lives, before and after everything that changes them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Ghost In The Moscow Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [flightinflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/gifts).



The snow falls, thick and heavy; a pure blanket tainted by her mere presence. Here breath mists in the air, falling as crystals around her feet, and it is cold enough to burn like ice in her throat with every breath. Everything is still, and she knows all too well that the chill will magnify the slightest sound. She must be silent. But she has been trained for that.

A deep breath, and she moves easily into the routine, able to pretend for a few moments at least that she is back in the practice hall, with smiling faces she will never see again looking on. She tumbles and flips, building up momentum and leaving little dints which will soon be filled again. It will be untraceable. Of course it will. She is nothing more than a ghost in the shadows of a Moscow night.

She had been a person once, though the memories of what it had been like were hazy. There were brief flashes of bright lights and colours; laughter; soft shadows and lullabies half murmured in a mellow voice soothing away nightmares and fantastic monsters conjured from the corners of a child's mind.

Now, of course, she knew that the monsters weren't real. They were all lies, nothing that could harm her.

Real monsters rarely looked like monsters. That would give the game away. They had to appear innocent until the last possible moment.

She knew she was a monster. She knew that was what they had made her, and she didn't mind. She was better now, so much better than just being human, and for the moment the freedom it bought her, though dearly bought, was worth the price paid in blood. Most of it others'.

If she took her time over reaching the window there was nobody here to call her on it, to promise a punishment later for wasting time, and so she took what little joy she could from the movements, the chance to push her body to its limits, test it and be proved right again and again. She peered through the glass, out of sight of the light though there was little evidence of any kind of security. The target was easy to pick out, and thoroughly oblivious. She didn't know what he'd done, and she didn't care. Why should she? This was her job, after all. She followed orders. That was what she had been created to do.

She moved around the building to the entry point which had been identified, and slipped in through the narrow ventilation shaft. She followed it to a junction, where it widened enough for her to change her clothes, slipping into the impractically short dress. The lingerie had already been in place under her catsuit. She wasn't sure where they found it small enough to fit, but then, she wasn't paid to ask questions. In fact, she wasn't paid at all, but questions often had rather dire consequences. The soldiers of the Red Room were not there to doubt, merely to obey.

It wasn't long before she was in his bedroom, and arranging herself artfully on the bed. Once in position she gently nudged a large book with pointed toes, knocking it from the table with a thump that brought him running.

His expression when he saw her, so young and seemingly innocent, wrapped up for him like a Christmas gift, was the same perverted joy she had seen countless times before, and she detached her mind carefully from the feeling of his hands on her. She couldn't let it get to her. She had practised this.

She allowed him to move between her thighs, teasing roughly against the thin lace. The fastenings caught, but she didn't even wince, acting her role perfectly until he was close enough to slip the knife from her garter and slit his throat.

She dodged the blood. It was hardly a novelty after all, but it was messy and she hated how it dried in her hair.

It was easy to clean the apartment and make sure she had left no trace. It was easier still to arrange him as if it were a suicide, safe in the knowledge that the NKVD would ask no questions. Their position was too precarious for that, with their premier at risk of incarceration himself. She felt nothing for him, though she was one of the many girls that had visited him. It had been part of her training. Beria was an expert in virgins. If she could convince him, then she could convince anyone. Much like every other test, she had passed it with flying colours.

She changed back into her uniform and left the building, the snow wiping clean any evidence that she had ever been there and she melted back like a ghost into the Moscow night.


End file.
